


Blind Faith (and other nonsense words)

by butterflymind



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Bullying, But mostly fluff, Cricket, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/pseuds/butterflymind
Summary: Oscar had spent many years carefully avoiding any form of college reunion. This was, as it turned out, one of his better ideas.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 13
Kudos: 69
Collections: Rusty Quill Gaming Exchange 2020





	Blind Faith (and other nonsense words)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Megzilla87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megzilla87/gifts).



Instinctively, Oscar would not have thought an Orc body type was well suited to cricket. And yet here he was, watching Tjelvar Stornsnasson, noted archaeologist and really quite serviceable fast bowler, intimidating a cowering tail end batsman. Oscar wasn’t sure if it was the quality of his bowling, or just the quality of… him that was doing it, but he could see the poor man quivering in his stumps.

“Are we winning?” Edward Keystone, scourge of a bucolic illusion, asked for the seventh or eighth time that afternoon. Oscar in all his long career of wining and dining off the backs of the upper classes, had never met a single one who had not grasped the fundamentals of cricket. Many who could not be trusted to dress themselves, or tie their own shoelaces correctly, but cricket had seemed as instinctive as breathing. Until today. And now he was sitting just beyond the boundary rope in a scene so quaint he would have satirised it viciously if he had been writing it, trying once again to explain the concepts of overs and innings to a man he wasn’t convinced could count reliably to six. Zolf, who had contributed by being cheerfully unhelpful all afternoon, lifted the abominable straw hat he was snoozing under off his face and looked over.

“The answer’s the same as it was five minutes ago.” He said, and then dropped back to lie flat on the picnic rug.

“Something might have changed.” Ed said stubbornly. Zolf looked at him, gestured out at the field where the game continued at a languorous pace, and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re still winning Edward.” Oscar did not want to referee another argument between them, it was far too hot for such a feat of forced impartiality.

“Good. Wake me at tea.” Zolf put the hat back over his face.

“You don’t even know what that means.” Oscar complained. 

“I know it’s a few hours from now.” Zolf’s voice was muffled by the hat. “That’s all I need.”

“You’ll get sun burnt.”

“I don’t burn.” This time Zolf expended the effort of taking the hat off his face. “I tan like the the roguish sailor you like me to be.” He winked lasciviously and Oscar glanced at Ed, over who’s head this was all quite comfortably sailing.

“Your face will tan with a criss-cross if you’re not careful.” Oscar was still eyeing the hat with undisguised disgust.

“Is that what this is about?”

“Please let me burn it.” Zolf just grinned at him and then jammed the hat on his head, looking steadily into Oscar’s eyes as he did it.

“Anything left in the picnic basket? Since I’m up.” Ed pushed it over to him and Zolf pulled out a large scotch egg, examined it for a moment, and then bit into it as if it was an apple. Oscar knew he was being dared to remark on this, but was saved from himself by a cheer going up from the wicket. He turned his head and saw that the terrified batsman was now staring in bemusement at his middle stump, which was several feet away from where he had left it. Tjelvar, he assumed, was somewhere in the cheering huddle of his teammates. 

“Did we win?” Ed asked, eyes wide. Oscar shook his head.

“Not yet. Tjelvar took a wicket though.” Ed beamed.

“Well done Tjelvar!” He hollered across the field. It was very loud. Most of the spectators turned to look at them, along with about half of the players. Tjelvar, revealed when Ed’s shout surprised the huddle into splitting apart, ducked his head with a smile. “Sorry!” Ed called, equally loudly, and held up his hand in a general apology. Then obviously feeling he had resolved the situation, he turned to Oscar. “Didn’t mean to disturb them.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” Zolf was still picking through the remains of the picnic. “At worst you’ll have caused a few long overdue heart attacks among the spectators.”

“Really?” Ed looked around, worried, and started to get to his feet.

“Not really.” Oscar reached up to put his hand on Ed’s shoulder and pull him back to the picnic rug. “Zolf is just joking with you.”

“Funny sort of joke.” Ed grumbled.

“I thought so.” Zolf agreed amiably. Ed’s expression clouded, and then cleared. From the outside, Oscar thought, it was eerily similar to watching the sun pass behind a cloud. 

“As long as no one needs my help.” He said.

“Let’s assume, at least for now, that everyone is fine.” Oscar said diplomatically. “Would you like a jam tart?” At that moment a second cry went up from the field, and the formation broke completely as both batsmen trudged off, looking dejected. The innings ended, and Tjelvar came jogging over to them, his cricket whites stained green by the grass and red by the ball. Oscar had to admit he looked quite dashing in a cricket jumper, and a small part of him shuddered at the thought. It must be the return to Oxford, dredging up these old tastes and pretensions of his. He looked at Zolf instead, smiled, and hoped he wasn’t being to obvious. The look he got in return was bemused, but fond. Tjelvar sat down next to Edward and rotated his shoulder, working the stiffness out of it.

“A few too many years since the last time I did that.” He said. He leaned in to steal a jam tart from Edward’s plate, kissing him on the cheek as he did so. Edward, who would have most likely given him the tart, the plate, and the rest of the hamper if he had asked, said nothing.

“Did you play at university?” Oscar asked. They had been at the same college, it had turned out, but somehow never crossed paths.

“Only inter-college.” Tjelvar shrugged. “Never any more than that. Played the cuppers.”

“Never for the first?” Oscar asked, surprised. “I would have thought they’d have killed for your sort of pace.” Tjelvar shifted a little uncomfortably.

“I don’t think I was quite their sort.”

“Your nationality or your race?” Zolf asked bluntly, his accent broadening as it always did when he was discussing the sins of the upper classes. 

“Probably both.” Tjelvar said ruefully. He and Zolf got on surprisingly well. Oscar had worried when they first met that their personalities would rub up against each other with the incendiary effects of a match and sandpaper, but instead they had joined forces in their mutual rage against all the small stupidities of the world. Oscar wasn’t deluding himself that it was not in itself worrying, sometimes, but it was also nice to see.

“Did you win?” Ed asked, smiling at Tjelvar like he had hung the moon.

“There’s another innings to go yet Eddie.” Oscar often wondered if Tjelvar’s fond exasperation muscles tired from overuse. 

“You mean you have to do all that again?” 

“Yes, but this time my team will be batting and the other team bowling.” Ed’s beautiful face looked distinctly troubled.

“But that’s going to take ages!”

“He’s getting the hang of it.” Zolf remarked to Oscar. 

“It won’t be that long.” Tjelvar replied with a glint of feral triumph in his eyes.

“They only have to score one more than the number of runs the other team scored.” Oscar explained.

“And that’s not very many?”

“And that’s not very many.”

“Because Tjelvar is winning.”

“Because Tjelvar’s team is winning, yes.” Ed nodded in satisfaction.

“That’s good then.”

“Yes.” Tjelvar’s grin had a little more of the Orc of legend shining through his usually urbane exterior. “It is, isn’t it.” A call came from across the field, one Tjelvar’s teammates waving at him to join them for a huddle. He stood up, dusting the remains of a jam tart from his trousers and kissing Ed quickly as he went. “See you at tea!” He called cheerfully as he jogged across the grass. Ed turned to Oscar.

“When’s tea?” Oscar sighed, Zolf flopped back with the hat over his face again. 

“You’re on your own.” He said, slightly muffled, and closed his eyes.

* * *

By the time they were trudging back from the fields to the college, the day had dipped into one of those summer evenings peculiar to the rolling chalk of England. The sky had faded to a cornflower blue, with fine wisps of cloud tinted rose and gold by the setting sun. Wood pigeons cooed and burbled in every tree they passed, offset by the chattering of smaller birds and the harsh calls of a rookery somewhere near by. Tjelvar trotted along slightly ahead, borne along by his teammates and their joy at a decisive victory. In his mind’s eye Oscar could see him as a younger man, among other young men and made giddy by the heady mix of friendship and winning.

Zolf walked beside Oscar in companionable silence, both keeping half an eye on Ed at the rear of the party, only slightly concerned that he might wander off. He was only half watching where they were going, the rest of his attention occupied by the world around them and the setting sun. Oscar was often quietly fascinated by Ed’s faith. It was so obvious a thing about him that it was easy to assume it was as without subtlety as Ed himself. Except it wasn’t; couldn’t be according to Zolf, Oscar’s only real source on spiritual matters. Even Ed, who was as straightforward as a steamroller, would have had to have come to some deep understanding with his God, said Zolf, just to wield the power he had. Blind faith only got you so far, Gods were only truly happy with your worship if they knew you knew what you were worshipping. ‘Ego’, Zolf had said with the touch of grumpiness he always had when anything like this came up. What’s the point of being worshipped unless your worshippers knew why they were worshipping. Otherwise, they might as well be worshipping any old thing. Oscar had tentatively suggested that perhaps everyone’s relationship with their Gods was not as complex as Zolf’s own. In return he got a look that, if Zolf had been fully clothed and less relaxed when this conversation was taking place, might have killed him on the spot. ‘You can champion everything your God stands for.’ He said firmly. And Oscar thought unbidden of Grizzop, remembering what that sort of faith looked like, fondness and grief still as sharp as arrows. ‘But it only counts if they know you understand what you’re believing in.’ Watching Ed watch the setting sun, uncharacteristically quiet and still, Oscar thought he finally had some idea what Zolf had meant.

“You’re worryingly quiet.” As if on cue, the man in question intruded into Oscar’s thoughts.

“Sorry, thinking.”

“I thought I could smell burning.” Zolf quipped. Oscar gave him a look.

“Every time?” He asked. Zolf reached up and took his arm in a proprietary manner.

“Every time.” He agreed. His eyes followed Oscar’s gaze to Ed, who had stopped to examine a tree.

“I wonder what it’s like in his head.” Oscar muttered, half to himself.

“Echoing.” Zolf replied, but with no real malice. They watched him walk thoughtfully around the tree, briefly and obviously consider climbing it, and then whip his head around and notice how far ahead the others now were. He looked briefly distressed, but then jogged along until he caught up with Oscar and Zolf.

“Good tree?” Zolf asked as he reached them. Ed looked at him blankly and Zolf sighed.

“We should catch up with the others.” Ed said, looking as nervous as a little boy caught doing something he shouldn’t. “We don’t want to be late for dinner.” Oscar wondered exactly how many dinners Edward had been told off for being late for. He waited for Zolf to make the obvious comment, but when none came he looked over and realised that Ed’s obvious nervousness had produced an unexpected reaction. He wouldn’t exactly have called it paternal, at least not anywhere where Zolf could hear him, but he looked more sympathetic to Ed that he had all day. He let go of Oscar’s arm and reached up to drag Ed along a little faster. He obviously knew Oscar was a lost cause and Oscar had to admit that he had once drunkenly lectured Zolf for half an hour on fashionable lateness, an incident that Zolf almost never reminded him of. So Oscar accepted his fate and, pleased with his view, was happy to amble along behind them as the college buildings came into view.

* * *

They were not as late for dinner as Oscar had hoped, nor as early as Zolf had intended. This was the usual compromise on the rare occasions they attended any formal event. Oscar could time to the second the moment he would hear ‘Oh bloody buggering hell’ in a broad west-country accent, and would delay for just a few minutes before he went to help Zolf with his bow tie. Then there were usually a few more minutes while he got to grips with the sight of him in formal wear. It was a pleasing routine, the gruff admonishments of not enough time and the promises made for later, and by the time all that was done they would be ten minutes too late, or ten too early, depending on your point of view. 

At least it wasn’t a college dinner, Oscar mused as they came down the stairs. True enough, it meant a short walk through Oxford to reach the venue. But it also meant no gowns, and no need to break his streak of failing to attend any reunions since leaving the place. He knew all too well the ghosts that would put in an appearance if he came back for one and they wouldn’t have come to this is if it hadn’t been for Tjelvar, and Zolf, and the odd friendship they had struck up rearing its inconvenient head. Quite the honour for a scholar for the opposition, to be invited for a departmental dinner in his honour, but then his success after Hannibal’s tomb had seen a meteoric rise in his career, despite the minor interruption of a near apocalypse. And if there was one thing Oxford was good at it was celebrating successes it considered to be its own, no matter where they happened to be achieved. Tjelvar had invited them, desperate for company for him and Ed, and got away with it because Oscar was an Oxford success in his own right these days. And having paid homage and had it paid in return at the College today, it was now time for an exchange of pleasantries with the school of archaeology over dinner. 

Ed and Tjelvar were both the tediously punctual type, and had set out for the walk across town sometime earlier, leaving him and Zolf alone to complete the journey. They were both savouring the silence, the peace to be in each others company and no one else's. From the reception last night, to the cricket and drinks of today, they had been more sociable in the last twenty four hours than either of them had been since before the war. It wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy company. Well, Oscar amended, it wasn’t as if he didn’t enjoy company. Zolf, with some notable exceptions, endured most people with a sort of bloody-minded stoicism that made it clear to Oscar exactly what sort of person you have to be to tell a God to bugger off. But Oscar enjoyed people, as long as he was in control of every interaction. It was a justifiable response to years in the semi-spy business, he told himself, and not as Zolf had once put it, a form of paranoia so ingrained it was written through him like a stick of rock. When you considered it all in that light though, perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to see why they didn’t go to dinner parties very often.

“This won’t be like the last academic party we went to will it?” Zolf asked. Oscar winced, the memory still a little too fresh.

“It’s a much older faculty.” He said. “They’ve had a lot longer to sublimate their rage.”

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.” Zolf pulled at his collar. “This is worse than the navy.” That piqued Oscar’s interest.

“Did you wear a uniform often?” He asked casually. Zolf gave him a look.

“Don’t think I don’t know why you’re asking.” He sighed. “No I didn’t, and no I don’t still have it.”

“Any pictures?” Oscar asked, still all innocence. Zolf punched him in the arm, and then reached up to open the heavy oak door that lead into the dining hall. 

“Behave yourself tonight, and you might find out.” He muttered.

* * *

Inside the hall, Tjelvar was pulling on his sleeves with the same level of discomfort Zolf was showing to his collar outside. He wasn’t quite sure how he managed, even at a dinner given in his honour, to feel out of place amongst the hum of conversation. Edward was sticking close to his side at least but he looked as anxious as Tjelvar felt, as if embarrassed by his very existence at this gathering. Early on in his life someone had taught Eddie to cover his nervousness with bluster, in the way of any good member of the English upper classes. It hadn’t worked, because Eddie was not designed in any way to bluster his way through life. But it had left him always feeling like he should be saying something, and being worried because he didn’t know what.

“Do you know all these people?” Ed asked, wide-eyed. 

“Some of them.” Tjelvar replied. “Not most of them though.”

“Then why are they at your party?” 

“That is a very good question Eddie.” Tjelvar smiled. “I was just wondering that myself.”

“Mr Wilde and Zolf are here.” Edward said, pointing to the other side of the room. Tjelvar breathed a small sigh of relief, and then out of the corner of his eye caught an unfriendly looking senior lecturer making a beeline towards them. Tjelvar recognised him vaguely, but couldn’t quite put a name to the face. He was happy enough to have an argument with anyone regardless, but Edward’s instinct to protect wasn’t always the most helpful in such moments.

“Oh good. Go and say hello.” Tjelvar prompted.

“Don’t you want to say hello?”

“I’ll be along in a minute.” Tjelvar gestured to the man approaching on their right. “But I think I might be having a discussion with this gentleman first.” Ed’s spine stiffened, attuned to Tjelvar’s body language even though the wider subtleties of the situation might elude him. 

“Do you want me to stay?” He moved as if to shield Tjelvar, without being aware of it.

“I’ll be fine, you go and say hello and I’ll be along in a moment.”

“Are you sure?” Tjelvar patted his arm comfortingly.

“I’m sure. Go.” Ed left his side reluctantly and Tjelvar braced himself, although his eyes continued to follow Ed across the room. 

“Mr Stornsnasson?” The emphasis on his title was not lost on Tjelvar as the man approached.

“Professor Mannheim.” Tjelvar replied cordially, grateful the name had clicked at the last second. “How nice to see you.” It was a lie, he remembered now the last time they had seen each other. It was a lecture in Cambridge before the war that had almost ended in bloodshed, and he and Mannheim had been on opposite sides of the argument. 

“Delighted, I’m sure.” Mannheim replied. They were posturing, Tjelvar knew it but couldn’t seem to stop. He glanced over to the other side of the room and saw the three of them watching him. Ed looked worried, Zolf and Oscar amused. 

“How goes the dig in Syria?” Tjelvar asked politely, once he had dredged his memory for the last thing he knew Mannheim to have been working on.

“Oh passable, passable. The sun is too hot, the natives too restless. You know how it is.” He gave Tjelvar a gimlet-eyed glance with the last, making it abundantly clear which race of ‘natives’ had been causing Mannheim trouble. Tjelvar sipped from his drink, imagining as he did so that he was raising a glass to the Orcs of Damascus. “How goes your hunt for glory?” Mannheim’s tone was saturated with contempt, but Tjelvar calmly gestured around himself at the assembled party. 

“Not bad.” He replied. “Glory somewhat achieved I think.”

“Of course, it is easy for the masses to confuse trinkets with scholarship.” Mannheim grumbled his lips pursed.

“That’s no way to describe your colleagues.” Tjelvar said mildly. “And it takes a certain amount of scholarship to find some trinkets.” His voice had dropped to a lower register without his permission, and his eyes had narrowed.

“I do love a good trinket.” Wilde said, startling them both. Eddie and Zolf were trailing behind him, Ed concerned, Zolf ready for a fight. Oscar of course looked the picture of guileless bonhomie, eyes too wide and too innocent, mouth curved in a smile that breathed flirtatious insouciance. Mannheim blinked at him like he was a creature never before encountered and his eyes dropped, just for a second, to his lips.

“We were just comparing notes on our various trinkets.” Tjelvar said serenely. He took Ed’s arm and Mannheim, seeing Edward for the first time, boggled anew. “Is it time for dinner?” As if on cue, a servant at the far door tapped the politest gong Tjelvar had ever heard and began ushering people through.

“Come on Edward.” He said, enjoying the effect on poor confused Mannheim, and lead them towards the door. He couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder as they went. He was just in time to catch Mannheim, still bemused, offering his arm to Oscar only to find himself quickly displaced by a dwarf with a clear sense of purpose.

“He’s fine, Ta very much.” Said Zolf, firmly detaching Mannheim’s arm and replacing it with his own hand. Oscar, who had no shame and could play up with the best of them, gave Zolf such a simpering look of devotion that Tjelvar nearly laughed out loud. He concentrated instead on walking forwards, and ignoring the wink Zolf was giving him from across the room. 

* * *

“And of course, then I inherited the damned place, property taxes and all, and now the whole damn cost is down to me.” That was the end of a very long, very self-pitying, and very, very boring speech that had taken up the last seven minutes and most of the soup course. Tjelvar put his spoon down and prayed to Apollo, and anyone else that might be listening, that he was not about to be required to to come up with a response.

“You could sell it, if you don’t want it.” Edward spoke for the first time since the meal began, and Tjelvar and everyone else around them started a little. He had been concentrating very hard on the cutlery he was using, with an almost childlike intensity that Tjelvar found deeply endearing and slightly sad. Ed still talked as little as he could about his life before Apollo, but Tjelvar had gleaned from the few things he had said, mostly at his most relaxed and unguarded, that an almost regimented system of aristocratic training had formed much of Edward’s early life. He also got the feeling, although Eddie had never said it out loud and would possibly never know how to fully articulate it, that the disappointment in Edward Keystone had begun early, and had likely informed every interaction with his family until they had finally given up and shipped him off to the church. It made him angry, in a formless, useless way, to think of it. Tjelvar blinked out of his reverie and realised that that man who had spoken was looking at Edward as if he had unexpectedly grown two heads. 

“I couldn’t sell it.” He said, appalled. 

“Give it away then.” Ed replied reasonably. “I’m sure there’s plenty of people in need who could use it.” The man blinked, apparently frozen in place by the stupidity of this suggestion.

“But… I mean…” He floundered for a few seconds and then settled on “who are you exactly?” Both Ed and Tjelvar tried to answer at once. And both were surprised to be interrupted by a sing-song voice from further down the table.

“I know who you are.” It was not a nice tone, the sound of a playground bully laced through it like bitter poison. Further down the table, Tjelvar saw both Zolf and Oscar stiffen. “This is Edward St. John Montgomery Keystone.” Tjelvar had located the speaker now, a small man with a weaselly look not helped by an overabundance of moustache. “Youngest son of the Duke of York. Unless I am much mistaken.” He sketched an ironic bow at Edward, without leaving his seat. Ed had completely frozen, eyes wide like a frightened animal. The man with the troublesome mansion on the other hand, had come back to life with a vicious smile.

“I’ve heard of you.” He said, still grinning. “Explains a lot about your attitude I suppose.”

“What does it explain exactly?” That was Oscar, leaning in from his place down the table. There was a glint in his eye and Zolf had placed a hand on his arm.

“Well, it explains the stupid questions for a start.” The man was all bravado now. Ed had gone white, Tjelvar put a comforting hand on his knee underneath the table but he wasn’t sure he even noticed.

“And which questions would those be?” There was something in Oscar’s tone that Tjelvar had never heard before, and it took him a second to realise what it was. A hint of brogue, a touch of the Irish that he rarely allowed out. Zolf’s hand tightened in the crook of his elbow; support, or a warning.

“That’s enough Oscar.” Said Tjelvar quietly. As much as he would like to have seen this man eviscerated, intellectually or otherwise, Ed was as tense as a bowstring and that overrode all his other concerns.

“No no, I’ll answer his question.” The man had shoved his chair away from the table, and was leaning back into it making an expansive gesture. “After all, everyone knows about little Eddie Keystone.” He smiled at Edward. “I was at school with your brothers.” He said conversationally. “I remember when they said you couldn’t come to school with them, that your father was keeping you at home. Educating you there so you wouldn’t be an embarrassment to him.” There was a fine tremor running through Edward now, Tjelvar noticed. He squeezed his leg, and Edward’s hand suddenly came down to grab his, gripping it tightly. Tjelvar had a flash of anger at himself, feeling he had stupidly, unwittingly, brought Edward into the lion’s den.

“Couldn’t read until he was seven I heard.” The man who had started all this chimed in gleefully. “No numbers either, no history, no geography.” Tjelvar thought of the fragility of human skulls and his hand twitched.

“I heard they shut him in the temple in the end.” The first man returned, for all the world as if this was a casual conversation over dinner. “They must have taught him his prayers by rote.” By now, all other conversation had stopped to watch this unfold.

“I know my prayers.” Edward said stiffly, his hand still gripped tight in Tjelvar’s.The mention of the church had finally shocked him into speech.

“And how many people’s time did you waste teaching you?” The weasel-faced man asked. Edward flushed, and Tjelvar recognised remembered shame.

“There’s no time to be wasted when you’re teaching your God’s word.” That was Zolf, who had stood up and pushed his own chair back, his eyes flashing. “Just because no God would touch you with a ten foot pole, there’s no need to take it out on those that are blessed.” Weasel-face turned towards him, obviously not expecting an interjection from his side of the table.

“What would you know about it?” He growled. “You’ve got no holy symbol.” Zolf just raised an eyebrow and then concentrated, and out of the air came a flaming, ghostly glaive. It hung at its master’s hand, waiting for instruction, the edges of it flaring and sparking like iron in the forge.

“Would you like to reconsider that statement?” Zolf asked dryly. He twitched his hand and the glaive moved with it, attached on invisible strings. Next to him Tjelvar noticed Oscar close his eyes, and give what appeared to be a long suffering sigh. The weasel-faced man was transfixed by the glaive, watching it dance and move in the air.

“Zolf.” Said Oscar in a warning tone. “I know he needs a shave, but that might not be the best way to go about it.”

“You’re no fun.” Zolf grumbled. He flicked a hand and the flaming glaive floated above the table, then settled in a corner next to the large picture window. Oscar looked at it, then back at Zolf, and pursed his lips. Zolf folded his hands over his chest defiantly.

“Not until we’re done here.” Oscar threw up his hands, but gave in. Weasel-face seemed cowed, but the man at Tjelvar’s end of the table was not deterred.

“Fine friends you’ve got Eddie.” He said. “Your brothers said you were too stupid to learn any manners, but what’s their excuse?”

“Don’t call him that.” Tjelvar growled, the words out of his mouth before he even knew they were coming.

“Why not?” Tjelvar pushed back his chair and stood up, letting go of Edward’s hand. The man did the same and they met in the middle of the room. Tjelvar looked down on the man, who was a good foot shorter than him, but he continued to stand his ground obstinately, and drunkenly.

“You’ve not earned the right to use that name.” He said. The man laughed.

“I’ve all the rights.” He said, up close it became obvious he was swaying slightly. “I knew his brothers before you’d crawled out of your mountain cave.”

“You will not speak to Tjelvar like that.” That was Ed, now also standing, blocking in the man from the other side. Tjelvar, who had been about the make the same point with a fist to the man’s jaw, looked up into Edward’s eyes again.

“And what are you going to do about it Keystone?” The man asked. Around them, Tjelvar was vaguely aware that the other diners were beginning to get out of their seats, that the man’s friends were coming to join him while Oscar and Zolf were also finding their way around the table towards them. 

“I’m going to teach you some manners.” Ed said, in a voice Tjelvar had never heard him use. “Show you what I learnt.” There was a punch coming, Tjelvar could see it in the bunching of the muscles in Edward’s arm, in the way his gaze had focused on the man before them. The air around them crackled, the righteous fury of Apollo was an almost tangible presence in the air. And then the tension was suddenly broken, when one of the other diners screamed.

“The curtains! She said, pointing towards them. “They’re on fire!”

“Oh dear.” Said Oscar, sounding calmer than anyone really should with an imminent inferno within 15 feet of them. “Your glaive seems to have set the upholstery alight.” 

“But it can’t…” Zolf started, then turned towards the window. “Oh, so it has.” He said with mild interest.

“May I suggest an evacuation, if everyone is amenable?” Oscar suggested. There was a moment of perfect quiet, and then everyone made a rush for the door. Tjelvar went to grab Edward and run, but out of the corner of his eye he caught Zolf shaking his head minutely. He paused, and looked at the fire, really looked. It was licking at the window frame now, and had caught the edge of the carpet. But the edges of it were wrong, and when Tjelvar looked through the lens of his own magic, he could see how the edges were blurred, and not quite real. Ed was tugging on his hand, trying to get him to move, but he held firm and eventually Ed came to him instead, trusting him more than his own senses. 

By now, the hall was empty but for the four of them. Oscar sighed, and dropped the illusion of the fire, the flames winking out of existence like bubbles on water. Zolf’s glaive was left as it was before, until he too reached out and the glaive winked out of existence.

“Must every party end like this?” Zolf said mournfully, looking around the deserted hall.

“Sorry.” Ed replied, sounding crestfallen. Tjelvar turned to comfort him, but found Zolf was already there, patting him firmly on the arm.

“Never mind Ed.” He said, cheerfully. “You can’t help these toffs, no manners the lot of them.” Ed looked slightly confused by this, trying, Tjelvar assumed, to work out where he stood in that statement. But Zolf was leading him cheerfully out of the hall, and Tjelvar and Oscar could do little more than follow. “Let’s find some fish and chips.” Zolf was saying as they went out of a side door, well away from the gathered diners now shivering in their finery as the evening turned colder. “And we’ll show these Oxford lot what real singing is.”

“Apollo songs?” Ed perked up. Zolf cleared his throat.

“Some of them.” He said noncommittally. “And I’ll teach you some sea shanties, to go with the fish.”

“OK.” Edward agreed amiably enough.

“It’s all downhill from here.” Oscar muttered to Tjelvar as they walked behind the two of them, Ed trying to teach Zolf the words to a hymn apparently called ‘Apollo’s mighty fire burns the undeserving.’

“They seem happy enough.” Tjelvar said, a great sense of relief crawling up from his belly to see Ed no longer in that frozen, fearful state. 

“Yes.” Oscar agreed, giving them a look and then turning to Tjelvar with a smile so fond it changed his whole face, no longer the sophisticate playwright, but a simpler, happier man. “That is what I’m afraid of.”

* * *

“Oscar?” Zolf was sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard, the blankets pooled in his lap. He always got to bed first, because his nighttime routine involved stripping off whatever he was wearing, stretching out his muscles after a day in the prosthetics, and then washing his face before climbing between the sheets. Oscar’s routine was a little more involved, the practical upshot of which was that Zolf was usually the one charged with warming the sheets.

“Hmm?” Oscar was fussing about with something in a small pot on the dressing table. He didn’t bother to turn around, but glanced up to Zolf’s face in the mirror.

“Is every party you go to like that?”

“Not every party, no.” Oscar said distractedly. He had put the pot down, and was brushing his hair. “Although I must say the frequency of such incidents has increased since I started going to parties with you.” Zolf huffed.

“That was nothing to do with me.” He grumbled. “I was just enjoying my soup. And there were going to be guinea fowl later. I never get to finish a good meal.”

“I’ll buy you guinea fowl tomorrow.” Oscar promised, still distracted. “Anywhere that isn’t Oxford.”

“You won’t be attending a college gaudy then?” Zolf asked, with only a flicker of amusement. “Shame, I quite fancied seeing you in cap and gown.”

“They make you wear things underneath it.” Oscar said. “At least, they do after the first time you’ve tried to go without.” Zolf shook his head, not even slightly surprised.

“Of course you did that.” He said. He was watching Oscar critically, recognising the signs of anxiety in him long before they would have been visible to anyone else. “Put that bloody brush down and come to bed would you.”

“If I wake up a tangled mess tomorrow, I’m blaming you.” He grumbled as he slid between the sheets.

“You’ll do that regardless of how much brushing you do tonight.” Zolf reached over and ran his hands through Oscar’s hair, which was already starting to tangle. “You have naturally uncooperative hair.”

“I think that was an insult.” Oscar said, but he curled up as close as he could to Zolf’s warmth regardless.

“Do you think Ed’s alright?” Zolf asked, as soon as Oscar had stopped fidgeting.

“Probably.” Oscar interrupted himself with a yawn. “He’s the resilient sort.”

“That’s only because half the time he can’t remember why he’s supposed to be upset.”

“Not fair.” Oscar admonished gently. Zolf just looked at him.

“OK, somewhat fair.”

“He’ll be alright I suppose.” Zolf said, snuggling down into the bed. He looked up, realised Oscar was still leaning on the headboard, and yanked him down to join him, arranging him to make a comfortable pillow. Oscar, used to this routine, bore it stoically. “He’s got the love of his man and his God. What more could he need?”

“That’s very romantic, for you.”

“No, I’m being practical. He can heal himself, he can defend himself, and he has something worth defending. There’s not much else you could want.”

“Now you’re being positively soppy. Ow!” 

“You brought that on yourself.” Zolf grinned, but rubbed at the spot he’d hit in a mute apology. 

“The abuse I suffer.”

“I know, you’re a martyr to love.”

“I am.” Oscar sighed dramatically. He smiled down and kissed the crown of Zolf’s head. He got swatted at in an idle way for his trouble, but Zolf wasn’t trying to hit him, and was only grumbling out of habit.

“Could we perhaps skip the next academic event you’re invited to?” Zolf asked, his eyes already closed.

“And miss out on all the fun of this evening?” Oscar put on his best scandalised tone, and still could not quite manage to sound sincere.

“We can have fun on our own.” Oscar giggled and Zolf hit him again, this time unrepentant. “Not like that.”

“I suppose it has the advantage of avoiding the dregs of the sentient races.” Oscar agreed.

“So no more academic parties?”

“No more academic parties.” Oscar agreed. “For now, we will only mix with people good enough for the likes of us.”

“Short list.” Zolf said approvingly as Oscar turned out the lamp and they curled up together. “I like it.”

* * *

It was unusual for Edward not to be able to sleep. He was used to waking with the sun, and falling asleep soundly when the daylight was gone. Tjelvar he knew sometimes couldn’t sleep, and slipped out of their bed at home to work in his study at odd hours, not wanting to wake Edward. Now it was his turn to be restless he supposed. He lay still in the dark for some time, staring a the unfamiliar shapes of the room, before he finally gave up and slid out from under the blankets. He tucked them back in around Tjelvar, mindful of the chill in the room. He went and stared out of the window at the darkened grounds below. The moon was a week sliver of light, and close to setting, and there was almost nothing to light the world below the window other than the weak chill of starlight. He stood there for some time, staring, before he heard Tjelvar stir behind him.

“Eddie, you alright?” He sounded baffled, just woken from sleep.

“I’m just thinking.” Edward said, still staring out of the darkened window. Behind him, Tjelvar sat up more fully.

“About what?”

“Home.”

“Cambridge?” Tjelvar asked, still dazed from being woken.

“No. My home. Where I grew up.”

“Oh.” Tjelvar sounded more awake now. “Do you want to talk about it?” He tried.

“I don’t want to go back there.” Ed said firmly. He turned from the window and Tjelvar saw his expression, harder and more unhappy than it had ever been. He couldn’t help it, he sat up and opened his arms and after a moment Ed fled into them, curling himself around Tjelvar and hiding his face in his nightshirt. Tjelvar rubbed soothing circles on his back, and waited.

“I don’t want to go back there.” Ed repeated more softly, sounding calmer, his words muffled by Tjelvar’s chest. He adjusted his position and Tjelvar noticed his feet and ankles, bare and freezing in the chilly room. He reached out, and tucked the blankets around them without thinking about it. “I don’t want to go back.”

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to think about it ever again if you don’t want to.” Tjelvar said soothingly. Ed looked up at him, and smiled, watery but sweet.

“But I’d like to see my mother again.” He said. He leaned back and rested on the pillows. Tjelvar kept one arm about his shoulders, a loose embrace he was loathe to let go of.

“Oh. I assumed your mother was…” He trailed off, because when he thought about it, he hadn’t really assumed anything about Edward’s mother, because he hadn’t really thought about her at all. Edward was the Duke of York’s son, he knew that, but his mother was little more than a hazy shape at the back of his mind.

“She writes to me.” Edward said smiling. “Every other week.” He turned the full power of his smile on Tjelvar, open and joyful, and Tjelvar could not understand how, of all the people in all the world, anyone could harbour resentment against this one. “She’s the one who suggested I went to Apollo.”

“So your father didn’t send you?” Tjelvar asked in a small voice. He had just assumed, like everyone else. But Ed was shaking his head vigorously, tossing blond hair like a halo.

“No, Dad was dead against it.” He smiled again, and Tjelvar realised all at once that he had known that he had assumed, just like everyone else, that the church was a punishment. “He wanted to send me into the military.” Edward made a face. “But Mum said I was meant for Apollo. She’d been teaching me all the songs, ever since I was little.” 

“Eddie, I’m sorry I…” Edward waved his apology away, and curled in closer to Tjelvar’s body again.

“You weren’t to know.” He said. “You can’t know things people don’t tell you. Trust me.” Tjelvar gave an involuntary huff of laughter and Ed looked up at him, pleased to have made him smile. “But you can’t just be sent to a church y’know. At some point you have to choose. Otherwise Apollo won’t let you use his power.”

“Would your mother like to visit us?” Tjelvar asked, addicted to Ed’s happiness and suddenly daring. Ed looked startled.

“Could she?” 

“I don’t see why not.” It was Tjelvar’s turn to grin. “She could come to Cambridge. Or she could visit us on that dig, in the spring.”

“She might like that. She likes old things. And she’s very impressed that you’re a famous archaeologist.” Tjelvar paled slightly.

“You told her about me?” He asked. Ed nodded against his chest.

“Course.” He said, sounding sleepy. “She’s my Mum.”

“And what did you tell her?” Tjelvar asked carefully.

“I said you were a famous archaeologist, and that you were the one who found Hannibal’s tomb. Again.” Tjelvar only winced slightly at that. “And I told her that I was your assistant.”

“You told her you were my assistant?”

“I am your assistant.” Ed said a little defensively. Tjelvar patted his shoulder.

“Of course you are. I just meant, did you tell her anything else?”

“Oh yeah. I told her that you love me. And that I love you. And that we have a nice house near your college with flowers in the garden. She likes flowers.”

“Oh good.” Said Tjelvar, a little shakily. Ed looked up at him again, worried this time.

“Should I not have told her?” He asked.

“No no. Of course you should have told her.” Tjelvar said hastily. “She is your mother after all.” He added. This seemed to satisfy Ed, who settled back down again, growing heavier as he drifted into sleep.

“I’ll tell her she can visit us in Cambridge.” He said, and Tjelvar could feel him smile where his face was pressed against his chest. “She can see the flowers. And then we can ask her if she wants to come on the dig in the spring.”

“That sounds lovely.” Tjelvar agreed, and dropped a kiss into Ed’s hair, only to find he’d drifted off into sleep.

“Lovely.” He murmured, and followed him.


End file.
